Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Alabama. With a population of 180,1805, it is the third largest city in the state, and is nicknamed The Rocket City for its close association with U.S. space missions. It grew across nearby hills north of the Tennessee River, adding textile mills, then munitions factories, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command nearby at the Redstone Arsenal. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named Huntsville to its "America's Dozen Distinctive Destinations for 2010" list. Huntsville has the second largest technology and research park in the nation, and ranks among the top 25 most educated cities in the nation. It is considered in the top of the nation's high-tech hotspots, and one of the best Southern city for defense jobs, It is the number one United States location for engineers most satisfied with the recognition they receive, with high average salary and low median gross rent. Demographics As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the racial composition of the city is: 58.24% White (104,893) 31.29% Black or African American (56,354) 5.53% Hispanic or Latino (9,959) 4.94% Other (8,899) 16.2% (29,177) of Huntsville residents live below the poverty line. Theft rate statistics For a city of its size, Huntsville has average rates of Pokemon theft and murder. The city reported 85 Pokemon thefts in 2018, and averages 7.93 murders a year. Pokemon See the Madison County page for more info. Fun facts * Huntsville initially opposed secession from the Union in 1861, but provided many men for the Confederacy's efforts. The 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment, led by Col. Egbert J. Jones of Huntsville, distinguished itself at the Battle of Manassas/Bull Run, the first major encounter of the American Civil War. The Fourth Alabama Infantry, which contained two Huntsville companies, were the first Alabama troops to fight in the war and were present when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865. Eight generals of the war were born in or near Huntsville, evenly split with four on each side. On the morning of April 11, 1862, Union troops led by General Ormsby M. Mitchel seized Huntsville in order to sever the Confederacy's rail communications and gain access to the Memphis & Charleston Railroad. Huntsville was the control point for the Western Division of the Memphis & Charleston, and by controlling this railroad the Union had a direct connection to Charleston, South Carolina. During the first occupation, the Union officers occupied many of the larger homes in the city while the other men camped on the outskirts. In the initial occupation, the Union troops searched for both Confederate troops hiding in the town and weapons. After they had established themselves, the occupying federals did not burn or pillage the city of Huntsville, though towns around it were sometimes targeted. Treatment toward the town was actually civil. The Union troops were forced to retreat some months later, but returned to Huntsville in the fall of 1863 and thereafter used the city as a base of operations for the remainder of the war. While many homes and villages in the surrounding countryside were burned in retaliation for the active guerrilla warfare in the area, Huntsville itself was spared because it housed elements of the Union Army. * After the Civil War, Huntsville became a center for cotton textile mills, such as Lincoln, Dallas, and Merrimack. Each mill company constructed worker housing, in communities that included schools, churches, grocery stores, theaters, and hardware stores, all within walking distance of the mill. In some of these, workers were required to buy goods at the company stores, which sometimes overcharged them. The mill owners could throw out workers from housing if they violated policies about behavior. * George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is located on Redstone Arsenal, an army post which is a garrison for a number of tenants including the United States Army Materiel Command, Army's Aviation and Missile Command, the Missile Defense Agency of the Department of Defense, and the space flight center. Many of these units are moving due to decisions by the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The base contains a government and contractor workforce that averages 36,000 to 40,000 personnel daily. ** Originally a chemical weapons manufacturing facility for World War II, in the immediate post-war era it became home to the German rocket scientists that were brought to the US as part of Operation Paperclip. The team first worked on ballistic missiles, starting with V-2 rocket derivatives before moving on to a series of ever larger designs. Many of their tests were carried out at White Sands Missile Range and flights between the two locations were common. In late 1956 the Army was relieved of most of its ballistic missiles in favor of similar weapons operated by the US Air Force. The German design team was then spun off to become part of the newly founded NASA. Redstone served as the primary site for space launch vehicle design into the 1960s. * There are several strip malls and shopping malls throughout the city. Huntsville has one enclosed mall, Parkway Place, built in 2002 on the site of the former Parkway City Mall. A larger mall built in 1984, Madison Square Mall, was closed in 2017 and the site is to be redeveloped into a lifestyle center. There is also a lifestyle center named Bridge Street Town Centre, completed in 2007, in Cummings Research Park. * Huntsville is served by Huntsville International Airport. * Portions of the city, including downtown, were devastated and incinerated by a powerful EF5 tornado on April 3rd, 2007, which killed 276 and injured over 3,000 along its entire path. It remains to this day the costliest, deadliest, and most powerful tornado in Alabama history. * Huntsville is home to Alabama A&M University, University of Alabama-Huntsville, J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College, and Oakwood University. * More than 25 biotechnology firms have developed in Huntsville due to the Huntsville Biotech Initiative. The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is the centerpiece of the 150-acre Cummings Research Park Biotech Campus, part of the 4,000-acre Cummings Research Park, which is second only to North Carolina's Research Triangle Park in land area. The non-profit HudsonAlpha Institute has contributed genomics and genetics work to the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE). For-profit business ventures within the Biotech Campus focus on subjects such as infectious disease diagnostics, immune responses to disease and cancer, protein crystallization, lab-on-a-chip technologies, and improved agricultural technologies. The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) created a doctoral program in biotechnology to help develop scientists to support HudsonAlpha in addition to the emerging biotechnology economy in Huntsville. The university's strategic plan has biotechnology as one of its emerging fields for future education and research. * A dairy cow called Lily Flagg broke the world record for butter production in 1892. Her Huntsville-resident owner General Samuel H. Moore painted his house butter yellow and organized a party to celebrate, arranging for electric lights for the dance floor. An area south of Huntsville was named Lily Flagg before 1906. This area was later annexed by the city. Category:Alabama Cities